The Southern Manifesto, History 1302 DB 6 help

Read Chapters 23 and 24 along with the information providedregardingThe Southern Manifesto. Once all reading is complete,respond to the following items using a minimum of 300 words, no citing, and useyour own words:1.What is thebasis of the opposition to theBrowndecision as expressed in thisdocument?2. Accordingto the manifesto, whose power would the federal government usurp byimplementingBrown?3.What roledid habits, customs, and traditions play in the arguments presented inthe document?-----------------------Southern Manifesto on Integration (March 12,1956)From Congressional Record, 84th Congress SecondSession. Vol. 102, part 4. Washington, D.C.: Governmental Printing Office,1956. 4459-4460.DOCUMENT DESCRIPTIONIn 1956, 19 Senators and 77 members of the Houseof Representatives signed the "Southern Manifesto," a resolutioncondemning the 1954 Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education. Theresolution called the decision "a clear abuse of judicial power" andencouraged states to resist implementing its mandates. In response to Southernopposition, in 1958 the Court revisited the Brown decision in Cooper v. Aaron,asserting that the states were bound by the ruling and affirming that itsinterpretation of the Constitution was the "supreme law of the land."TRANSCRIPTThe unwarranted decision of the Supreme Court inthe public school cases is now bearing the fruit always produced when mensubstitute naked power for established law.The Founding Fathers gave us a Constitution ofchecks and balances because they realized the inescapable lesson of historythat no man or group of men can be safely entrusted with unlimited power. Theyframed this Constitution with its provisions for change by amendment in orderto secure the fundamentals of government against the dangers of temporarypopular passion or the personal predilections of public officeholders.We regard the decision of the Supreme Court inthe school cases as clear abuse of judicial power. It climaxes a trend in the Federaljudiciary undertaking to legislate, in derogation of the authority of Congress,and to encroach upon the reserved rights of the states and the people.The original Constitutional does not mentioneducation. Neither does the Fourteenth Amendment nor any other amendment. Thedebates preceding the submission of the Fourteenth Amendment clearly show thatthere was no intent that it should affect the systems of education maintainedby the states.The very Congress which proposed the amendmentsubsequently provided for segregated schools in the District of Columbia.When the amendment was adopted in 1868, therewere thirty-seven states of the Union. Every one of the twenty-six states thathad any substantial racial differences among its people either approved theoperation of segregated schools already in existence or subsequentlyestablished such schools by action of the same law-making body which consideredthe Fourteenth Amendment.As admitted by the Supreme Court in the publicschool case (Brown v. Board of Education), the doctrine of separate but equalschools "apparently originated in Roberts v. City of Boston (1849),upholding school segregation against attack as being violative of a stateconstitutional guarantee of equality." This constitutional doctrine beganin the North-not in the South-and it was followed not only in Massachusetts butin Connecticut, New York, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey,Ohio, Pennsylvania and other northern states until they, exercising their rightsas states through the constitutional processes of local self-government,changed their school systems.In the case of Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896 theSupreme Court expressly declared that under the Fourteenth Amendment no personwas denied any of his rights if the states provided separate but equal publicfacilities. This decision has been followed in many other cases. It is notablethat the Supreme Court, speaking through Chief Justice Taft, a former Presidentof the United States, unanimously declared in 1927 in Lum v. Rice that the"separate but equal" principle is "* * * within the discretionof the state in regulating its public schools and does not conflict with theFourteenth Amendment."This interpretation, restated time and again,became a part of the life of the people of many of the states and confirmedtheir habits, customs, traditions and way of life. It is founded on elementalhumanity and common sense, for parents should not be deprived by Government ofthe right to direct the lives and education of their own children.Though there has been no constitutionalamendment or act of Congress changing this established legal principle almost acentury old, the Supreme Court of the United States, with no legal basis forsuch action, undertook to exercise their naked judicial power and substitutedtheir personal political and social ideas for the established law of theland.This unwarranted exercise of power by the court,contrary to the Constitution, is creating chaos and confusion in the statesprincipally affected. It is destroying the amicable relations between the whiteand Negro races that have been created through ninety years of patient effortby the good people of both races. It has planted hatred and suspicion wherethere has been heretofore friendship and understanding.Without regard to the consent of the governed,outside agitators are threatening immediate and revolutionary changes in ourpublic school systems. If done, this is certain to destroy the system of publiceducation in some of the states.With the gravest concern for the explosive anddangerous condition created by this decision and inflamed by outsidemeddlers.We reaffirm our reliance on the Constitution asthe fundamental law of the land.We decry the Supreme Court's encroachments onrights reserved to the states and to the people, contrary to established lawand to the Constitution.We commend the motives of those states whichhave declared the intention to resist forced integration by any lawfulmeans.We appeal to the states and people who are notdirectly affected by these decisions to consider the constitutional principlesinvolved against the time when they too, on issues vital to them, may be thevictims of judicial encroachment.Even though we constitute a minority in thepresent congress, we have full faith that a majority of the American peoplebelieve in the dual system of government which has enabled us to achieve ourgreatness and will in time demand that the reserved rights of the states and ofthe people be made secure against judicial usurpation.We pledge ourselves to use all lawful means tobring about a reversal of this decision which is contrary to the Constitutionand to prevent the use of force in its implementation.In this trying period, as we all seek to rightthis wrong, we appeal to our people not to be provoked by the agitators andtroublemakers invading our states and to scrupulously refrain from disorder andlawless acts.Signed by:Members of the United States Senate:Alabama-John Sparkman and Lister Hill.Arkansas-J. W. Fulbright and John L.McClellan.Florida-George A. Smathers and Spessard L.Holland.Georgia-Walter F. George and Richard B.Russell.Louisiana-Allen J. Ellender and Russell B.Lono.Mississippi-John Stennis and James O.Eastland.North Carolina-Sam J. Ervin Jr. and W. KerrScott.South Carolina-Strom Thurmon and Olin D.Johnston.Texas-Price Daniel.Virginia-Harry F. Bird and A. WillisRobertson.Members of the United States House of Representatives:Alabama-Frank J. Boykin, George M. Grant, GeorgeM. Andrews, Kenneth R. Roberts, Albert Rains, Armistead I. Selden Jr., CarlElliott, Robert E. Jones and George Huddleston Jr.Arkansas-E. C. Gathings, Wilbur D. Mills, JamesW. Trimble, Oren Harris, Brooks Hays, F. W. Norrell.Florida-Charles E. Bennett Robert L. Sikes, A.S. Her Jr., Paul G. Rogers, James A. Haley, D. R. Matthews.Georgia-Prince H. Preston, John L. Pilcher, E.L. Forrester, John James Flint Jr., James C. Davis, Carl Vinson, HendersonLanham, Iris F. Blitch, Phil M. Landrum, Paul Brown.Louisiana-F. Edward Hebert, Hale Boggs, Edwin E.Willis, Overton Brooks, Otto E. Passman, James H. Morrison, T. Ashton Thompson,George S. Long.Mississippi-Thomas G. Abernethy, Jamie L.Whitten, Frank E. Smith, John Bell Williams, Arthur Winsted, William M.Colmer.North Carolina-Herbert C. Bonner, L. H.Fountain, Graham A. Barden, Carl T. Durham, F. Ertel Carlyle, Hugh Q.Alexander, Woodrow W. Jones, George A. Shuford.South Carolina-L. Mendel Rivers, John J. Riley,W. J. Bryan Dorn, Robert T. Ashmore, James P. Richards, John L. McMillan.Tennessee-James B. Frazier Jr., Tom Murray, JereCooper, Clifford Davis.Texas-Wright Patman, John Dowdy, Walter Rogers,O. C. Fisher.Virginia-Edward J. Robeson Jr., Porter HardyJr., J. Vaughan Gary, Watkins M. Abbitt, William M. Tuck, Richard H. Poff, BurrP. Harrison, Howard W. Smith, W. Pat Jennings, Joel T. Brothill.